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by lotsofpulp 1826 days ago
Did Nike address anything? I assumed everyone was still manufacturing in poorer countries due to more lax labor and environmental laws.

They might run some ads how they changed suppliers or something, but people are not going to pay double or triple for clothing so a factory worker in Bangladesh can get a better quality of life at work. People will not even pay more so their neighbors and countryman can have a better quality of life.

2 comments

No, but they will pay 2% more to fix something if it means 5% of customers don't write them off as "awful, unethical, big corp" and not buy stuff from them.

There are plenty of examples of companies that did or did not react to negative PR, but the effect is in the statistics, not the individual anecdata.

What are the statistics? All of these companies are still contracting out their labor to factories in countries with lower labor and environmental standards.

Nike chooses not employ any laborers for a reason. I do not see them advertising that the people making the clothes badged with the Nike symbol are working maximum 8 hour days, or maximum 40 hours per week, or getting vacation days.

It is all prose. The sweatshop conditions and disparities in quality of life at work between developed and developing countries have been known for 30+ years. The only thing causing improvements for the laborers in developing countries is increased demand for their labor, not some unverifiable PR response by Nike.

They are still manufacturing in those poorer countries. But I believe they do take some effort now to inspect and vet places where their shoes are made and make sure that children aren't working there.